Interreligious Dialogue
Interreligious understanding is more imperative today than ever before. With globalization, contact across religious traditions has accelerated, sparking tension and conflict but also enabling new forms of dialogue and collaboration. Relations between the West and the Islamic world are an important example of this broader trend. Berkley Center programs promote interreligious understanding by building knowledge of different traditions in their complexity and by furthering dialogue within and across communities, both religious and secular. The goal is to promote constructive interaction at Georgetown, in Washington, DC, and beyond, in a spirit of truth and mutual respect.
At the Center
In October 2007, The Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Berkley Center hosted a debate, dialogue, and discussion, with Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath on religious belief in the modern world. » more
CW’s edgy new sitcom Aliens in America, acclaimed for its wit and willingness to confront American attitudes about Islam and Muslims, was screened at Georgetown in October 2007. A discussion followed with the show’s creators, Moses Port and David Guarascio. » more
In January 2007, the Center cosponsored a symposium to mark the publication of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations Report, a document that outlines ways to improve cross-cultural relations between Muslim and Western nations and cultures. The symposium featured Shamil Idriss, a UN official charged with developing the report, as well as Professors John Esposito and Katherine Marshall. » more
Around the University
During spring 2006 Georgetown University hosted two major interreligious gatherings. The Building Bridges seminar, a gathering of Muslim and Christian scholars hosted by Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, took place in March. The "International Prayer for Peace 2006," annually organized by the Community since 1987 lay Comunità di Sant'Egidio, followed in April.
The Department of Theology offers a PhD in Religious Pluralism. The interdisciplinary degree involves the in-depth study of more than one religious tradition in its broader social and cultural context.
The Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding offers a Master of Arts in Liberal Studies on "Islam and Muslim-Christian Understanding".
The Program for Jewish Civilization has introduced an undergraduate minor.
Database Information
The Religious Perspectives Database
The Religious Perspectives Database juxtaposes the stances of major religious traditions on a variety of ethical and political issues. Users can compare and contrast key scriptural passages around issues including war and peace and wealth and poverty.
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Faculty Profile
Gay Gibson Cima
In her book In Early American Women Critics : Performance, Religion, Race (Cambridge University Press), Gay Gibson Cima of the English Department and the Humanities and Human Rights Initiative shows how performances of various kinds - religious, political, and cultural - enabled women to enter the human rights debates that roiled the American colonies and young republic. Black and white women staked their claims on American citizenship through disparate performances of spirit possession, patriotism, poetic and theatrical production. Between the First and Second Great Religious Awakenings (1730s-1830s), women from West Africa, Europe, and various corners of the American colonies self-consciously adopted performance strategies that enabled them to critique American culture and establish their own diverse and contradictory claims on the body politic. This book restores the primacy of religious performances - Christian, Yoruban, Bantu, and Muslim - to the study of early American cultural and political histories, revealing that religion and race are inseparable.
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